Iraq and Memorial Day

Today, a lot of our veterans found for a brave cause. They fought valor and bravery to defend democracy. However, I believe the war in Iraq puts stain on this day. It makes fighting a war to defend a country honor and national security a farce. It creates a stain on a day that we are supposed to celebrate heroic valor of those who fought in war.

The Iraq War was a bigger deception than the Vietnam War which slowly developed into large-scale geopolitical conflict between the US and China over control over the future of Indochina. That war was completely unnecessary, but that war escalated at a far slower pace than Iraq and was based on less deceit than the Iraq was.

“BAGHDAD — A feud between Iraqi Sunnis and the Shiite authorities they accuse of marginalising their community is driving a deadly spike in violence, but will stop short of all-out conflict for now, experts say.
Attacks including bombings that ripped through worshippers in mosques and cut down shoppers in markets killed over 430 people in Iraq so far in May, 461 in April and 220 or more every other month this year, according to AFP figures.
Crispin Hawes, the Middle East and North Africa director for the Eurasia Group consultancy, said policies of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that have politically isolated Iraqi Sunnis are the main factor behind the spike in violence.
The policies and resulting isolation have encouraged both “radicalisation” and passive tolerance of militants among Sunnis, he said.
“Pretty much since the last US soldier knocked the dust from his boots as he crossed the border (in late 2011), Maliki has gone after a succession of Sunni Arab politicians,” Hawes said.
Maliki made an unsuccessful call on MPs to remove Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlak, a Sunni who had said the premier was “worse than Saddam Hussein,” the day that the last US soldiers left.
A day later an arrest warrant was issued for then-vice president Tareq al-Hashemi, another Sunni.”

It is blight of a war that we fought under false premises that blights this day for me. Instead of building a stable democracy, we have created a ethnic war that creates a daily blood-bath on a daily basis. If Iraq was to remain stable, we would have to permanently maintain a troop level of 50,000 soliders to prop the current government.

Also, we have to deal with struggle of disabled veterans who had to deal with this struggle. Permanently maimed for the rest of their lives.
And they struggle with getting treatment as reported by MSNBC

“Service members who were disabled while on active duty are supposed to receive monetary assistance from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). But an increasing number of veterans never receive their disability benefits, or receive them far too late. While the VA has struggled to process claims in a timely fashion for years, the backlog of unprocessed claims has ballooned.
As of May 20, the VA had 838,821 claims waiting to be processed. Two-thirds of those claims—559,186 of them—have been pending for over 125 days and have been classified as “backlogged.” An additional 249,604 claim appeals are pending, from veterans who believe the VA ruled incorrectly on their initial claims. The average wait time for a claim to be completed is 345 days, but appeals can take much longer.
“At some offices, the wait is disastrous. It’s unbelievably long,” said Paul Sullivan, a Gulf war veteran, former VA official, and the current managing director of public affairs for Bergmann & Moore, a law firm which helps veterans with claims appeals.”

It is sad tragedy of what we did for men and women in services . As much as I want to remember the honor and valor of our men and women in service, it is also a day to remember that the futility of war. Outside of the war in Korea and World War II, the wars of the 20th and 21st century were entirely preventable. Let’s this day be a reminder of the futility of war and let’s strive for peace.

The word of the Special Comment hold my opinion about Iraq. The words of Olbermann will always live on and be my memory of the Iraq War. Let’s hope that we never get into an unnecessary Iraq War or Vietnam War and that we do not have to waste our men or women service’s lives for causes do not achieve last-lasting peace and democracy in other countries.